J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Finberg begins his transcription1 of Turner’s note, made with the page turned horizontally, with ‘The Horⁿ’ and the start of the last line as ‘... greens red’, but the reading given above largely follows James Hamilton’s, interpreting the subject as Plymouth Hoe,2 adjacent to the Citadel recorded elsewhere in this sketchbook (see for example folios 5, 6 and 7 recto; D09222–D09224). A vertical pencil line runs down from ‘sky’ between ‘red’ and ‘all’, and then tails off diagonally. The drawings as far as folio 127 recto (D09358) are all identified or presumed sites within a few miles in and around Plymouth, suggesting a series of fairly short excursions.